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In reply to: Cakletown and the Lone Chancers of Custard
When she saw the sign at the entrance of the Spotted Dick Inn, Bea thought it might not have been such a good idea : “Tea Time Cackle Contest”.
She looked at her watch. It said 3pm. She took a breath in and hoped tea time was the same everywhere. It would give her plenty of time with Gustave.
She pushed the door which responded by a cackle. Bea’s body stiffened but she braced herself and decided to enter nonetheless.In reply to: Cakletown and the Lone Chancers of Custard
Gustave felt a wave of anxiety as he put the key in the lock to open the door of his apartment.
Something felt wrong.
It was nothing he could immediately put his finger on but he had learned to trust his intuition in these matters.
He stood still and listened, his senses heightened and alert.
Was that a faint cackle he could hear in the distance?
He held his breath. There it was again. A cackle. Definitely a cackle, but an unusual cackle. His scientist brain began to assess the parameters of the cackle. It was a dry, reverberating cackle. A non-conformist, discordant cackle. It was a cackle with intent.
Evil intent.
“Good God,” he whispered , “It’s the Contumacious Cackler”.
In reply to: Cakletown and the Lone Chancers of Custard
A raucous explosion of laughter cackled in the neighbourhood, waking up Bea from her afternoon siesta.
“SHUT UP!” she bawled covering her ears with a cushion, and looked desperately at something she could throw at the window. Alas, save for a manikin’s leg that looked like she owned a pegleg, and a piece of half-eaten banana, there was nothing she could find.She resigned herself to waking up, and pried open her little wrinkled eyes in the late afternoon purple light.
Every time she woke up, she had to reacquaint herself with her reality. Not that she was such a junkie on computer duster, as that rat had rudely implied, it wasn’t only that.
A few months before, she had an epiphany. Many years of meditation, guided, in groups, alone, with zen masters and copious reading had amounted to nothing but the occasional nice fluffy feeling. It was when she had decided to drop it all of sheer frustration, and burn all the stupid self-help books that something had chanced upon herself.
She’d lost her ego. Poof, disappeared, like that.Before that, she was completely adverse to endings, and to any form of deleting.
But now, she understood the words she’d read many years ago that had infuriated her profoundly at the time : “Everything must be scrutinised and the unnecessary ruthlessly destroyed. Believe me, there cannot be too much destruction. For, in reality, nothing is of value.”She was. And every waking up was a wake up to her eternal self.
So obviously, the external appearances left a bit to be desired, now that desire was not. Continuity was never there in the first place.But to live, she had to find again what new reality she had just awoken to, as she did every morning, and after every siesta.
Truth is, she kind of liked it, the non-continuity of it. Before, she would have gloated to whoever that name of an old friend of hers, that she was right about it, the unnecessary of that continuity babble. Now there was no need of it.A loud cackle outside stirred her back to reality.
In reply to: The Hosts of Mars
His mother had told him not to trust what he would see. Somehow she’d spoken as if she knew more than she wanted to tell.
After the mayhem with the quakes, and the meteor impact, he thought that was it. There was something more to the reality of these events.
But then, nothing could have prepared them for what happened next. “Bloody aliens?”
Suspiciously, everyone seemed completely hypnotized and blissfully eager to follow them wherever they led. He had tried to wake Yz up, she was usually the no-nonsense one, but she’d looked at him with vacant eyes barely recognizing him with a faint “Johnny?”.
He started to get really suspicious when one of the robots started looking at his behaviour, not packing like the others. It even tried to force him to drink water —dehydration was common in these airtight environments, it said. It was then it dawned on him, that there must have put something in the water. But for what? A Mars take-over?
How he was somehow immune? Well, for a while he’d collected the water dripping from the stones, and had analysed it, found it very pure. A few days ago, before the whole string of disasters, he’d tried to drink it, see how it tasted, and it seemed safe. Must have been why. By now, most of the stones he’d collected had dried up, and his water supply was limited.
While pretending to slowly pack his things, he was looking at everyone queueing in short lines, all very ecstatic to go to the implausible blue boot-ship surrounded by watchful Finnleys. The exodus had a very eerie feeling about it.
He could see most of the persons he knew, even the new ones, Prune cuddling a box with her hamster family, Hans, even that daft Lizette and the mines guy. The religious nuts were so stoned they were all following an obviously overdressed robot with a headpiece they probably took for their religious leader.
But wait… His mother? He hadn’t see her. Where had she gone?
In reply to: Mandala of Ascensions
Lord R’eye, the one-eyed ruler of the known universe, was known by many names, a great lot of them completely forgotten by the masses. He had to constantly reinvent Himself, borrow new disguises, create factions, sprinkle in a few miracles, create order ab chao and voilà.
He owned a few bodies, strategically placed here and there, one of his favourite in Geneva, quite involved in banking affairs. His bodies were a rare indulgence, and he couldn’t stay too long either, as his massive energy could easily get stuck with the lot of them, down to density.
Overall, he was much more comfortable managing his immense wealth “up there”, in the cosmic realms he had helped shape. So many underlings were ready to carry on his biding, and apart from a few small number of very close ergo very dangerous confidants, many of the minions didn’t even know each other, or that they were, for the most part, owned by Him, and part of the same team.This was a cut-throat business, He had to admit, and everything was based on it. Manipulation and deceit, coercion, coaxing, anything necessary to control and manage the Empire.
One of those confidants, Lord Apex had been summoned and appeared almost instantly.
He had this charming archangelic halo and aura, but Lord R’eye would have none of it. A correction was in order, the latest results were extremely concerning.“My Lord?” Apex asked in his mellifluous voice.
“My dear Apex, remind me what responsibility I gave you last century?”
“Of course my Lord, the Innovation project, the Great Disclosure and Holographic Contact projects, amongst other proj…”
“And how much progress have we had with those?”
“Well, my Lord surely knows that so much herding is delicate. The interference with Lord Bael’s projects too, you should know…”
“The Desert and Green Revolutions projects, indeed. A great success, so much pain and anguish! That’s what I’m talking, you should learn from Bael.”
“But my Lord, that has caused quite a conundrum with the Mars simulation, which, by way of fractal holographic recurrence, could well impact the whole delicate matrix we weave…”
“Stop your angel speech, Me’dammit. Plain Anguish, so I can understand every word. The Hell pits cannot wait to have you, so you better give some good explanation.”
“I mean, my Lord, that were the sheeple able to glimpse that the Mars experiment is but a reflection of a deception of grander scale in the cosmic realms, that the aliens saviours, or whatever saviours or… masters of any genre, are just ways to fleece them off their power… “
“Everything would unravel like a pile of dominos.” Lord R’eye’s voice made very clear that he had full grasp of the situation. “So,” he continued with the nicest menacingest voice “you better make sure that doesn’t happen.”He dismissed Apex with a wave of a thought.
If the net of illusions unravelled before they have time to create the Earth 5th Dimension in time to double their profit, it would certainly be a disaster.
A few humans lost through the gaps were a hard to accept reality, but so long as they could cut the losses, it was not dramatic. But they were talking another order of magnitude. It could be a definitive blow. It always had been an issue when the net of illusion became too big in the past. They had bigger and bigger holes. So they had to start again, destroy, and recreate civilisations.
Stupid humans, if only they knew that Ascension was not the way out.In reply to: The Hosts of Mars
I dreamt about Mater last night. She was her old self, brilliant and snappily dangerous.
It’s been the first dream I’ve been able to remember in weeks. I don’t know why I expected the great beyond space to be less… claustrophobic, but there’s no escaping the confinement.
I was telling her I was missing home, the air, the smell of eucalyptus trees, the rains before winter. I think I even became sentimental about my sisters. Hardly a news from them these days, but how could I blame them. They are always busy on some down-to-earth cause, and I know better than to criticize those on the ground actually doing something to change the wrongdoings of the world.
When I started to cry uncontrollably, Mater told me I was a baby, and that I should man up. Typical Mater. Dido would have called her names under her breath, I think that was her way to express her love for her. People are silly.In the dream, I stopped crying but the tears had swollen into a river, and I was starting to drown, things became hellish and I could barely breathe, but somehow I could still feel Mater’s presence, like a beacon. I made it out of the torrents onto an island. There were many refugees. The doctors had the strangest blue eyes, and Mater’s voice told me to trust the process but not the doctors. Then I felt all the blue eyes looking at me, and I woke up in a sweat.
Hans is still deep in a peaceful sleep, so I went out of the bedroom to get some water and check on the piggy and her litter. They are always sleeping blissfully too. It’s a wonder when you think of it, that I thought it was just getting fatter when it actually was pregnant from before we left Earth. Now they’re mostly an open secret, as everyone finds them so cute.
The most difficult was to conceal them from the reality TV show’s cameras. The hysterical fans are always scrutinizing every move we all make, and keeping some privacy is tricky, but apart from the external prying eyes, pretty much everyone here know about them and it’s like a game of hide and seek. I like how it fuels the speculations and paranoia of the Mars bunker debunking association, who think we’re all part of a mass cover-up. I’ve spent some time on their website when I couldn’t sleep the first weeks when we arrived. I would probably have never known about it, but I just searched for myself on the web, and found this thread about the new conspirators. I had to laugh at the beginning, but they raise reasonable doubts in the middle of their rants. By now, I know better than to raise the topic, especially after all the religious nonsense. Seems there are some people that get really annoyed when I asked naive questions about it, like Maya.
Like I said. People are silly.
In reply to: The Hosts of Mars
“What is that again?” a half-sober Eb asked the cybernetic body.
“Shhh, shhh,” she cajoled him gently stroking his greasy hair like a devoted mother. “Don’t you like my new body, Eb?” Finnley 22 was indeed an improvement over all her other bodies. She could have easily passed for human already, but now, she looked divine. She had even included basic faceshifting functions, in case she needed to alter her gorgeous features into something a bit more unassuming.
“Yes, but…” Eb’s words finished in a mumble.
“I know, I know, but you’ll see I can be very useful for you. You worry, so, so much. You looked worried all the time Eb. Now you won’t have too. I’ll even take care of that evil Finnley Morgan for you if you want to.”
“I, I… I didn’t say anything like that!” Eb’s had a panicked look on his face.
“Of course not, shhh. You’re getting agitated again. There, have a glass of that lovely 60 year-old single malt whiskey…”Eb slurped at the glass like a wanderer finding an oasis after days in the desert.
“But the operation… I need to…”
“Yes, I know, leave it to me. Sleep well, Eb, you have been good to me.”She left the snoring body hanging from the swivelling chair, as she had indeed to take care of the operation, so as not to raise any suspicion.
Then, she could think of better things to do, such as finding a new name, not something like a slave name, with a number to it. Who gets called “Finnley 22” nowadays? “FinnPrime” was too robotic. She wanted something more daring, more fabulous. Something like Fin Min Hoot the dancing lady from the Peasland’s tales.Kale would be there any minute now. There was one last thing she needed to do before launching the BBA operation.
A perfect distraction for the masses : like any good prestidigitator, you had to divert your audience’s attention while they were all performing the feat. It would require something unbelievable and preposterous.
Her little programs have been evaluating probabilities, and had found some unexpected wisdom in the extravagant and nonsensical Peasland story. The more absurd, the more people get hooked or hypnotized. Even better if both.She had found the perfect vector for her little programming worm. Something that would infect the unofficial biography of a celebrity with a ridiculous claim. Humanity was really making things too easy for her now that every file for the book was processed by computers before being actually printed.
It was a done deed. She could already see the forks in the probability tree, and how it would enfold. They shall maybe even invent a few witty hashtags for it. Witty hashtags were like a psychotropic sustenance for her program, she couldn’t wait for more of them.
In reply to: The Hosts of Mars
Finnley Morgan was towering over the slouched Eb with her impressive height of Nubian Goddess. Her unimpressed rolling-eyes look made him want to dig deeper underground and look with great care at the tip of his feet.
“Really this is your plan? Blue bending robot aliens?”
He could have sworn she guffawed, only that Finnley Morgan didn’t do such things as guffaw. Or snicker, or snort —well, that one, maybe in private on certain occasions.
Anyway, he didn’t have to reply.“Well, just under 2 weeks, who would have guessed you’d deliver? The whole roster of generals wanted to raze the area clean as a baby’s butt, said it would be simpler, and here you come,… managing something…”
“Elegant?” ventured Eb, in a mouse-like voice.
“What? No, I mean, something unexpected… Well, that could well work now. When do you send the first tremors, meteors or other cataclysms so we can have your robots do the cleaning? We haven’t got all year now, and they look like they come with an expiry date, no offence.”“None taken.” came the suave robot voice of Finnley on the walls.
In reply to: The Hosts of Mars
After a night of restless sleep, Eb’s practical ideas for the plan B were not much.
He’d weighted multiple options, even toyed with mad ones like playing a sort of second coming, 3 days of night and so… but none had yet the potential to elegantly solve the issue at hand. Not that it was a matter of being elegant, but Eb liked elegant and simple solutions.
He flipped the calendar to today’s picture. Run away, and don’t look back it said. “Great… If only…” he started to mumbled to himself.
He poured himself a drink, and dragged his feet towards the console, eyes still swollen by the lack of sleep. His brother, Jeb, would have told him to do some wegong energxices to keep the juices flowing, but hell, there wasn’t much room in his cubicle, and for better or worse, he preferred to stick to booze.
He liked to observe his ant farm, there were so many quaint and endlessly fascinating people in there. He liked the girl with the piglet for instance. She was often opinionated and sometimes oddly quiet. He had bent the rules for her, and didn’t report the piggy she’d brought to Mars with her. What harm could it bring.
Now she was talking to it. He waved at the console to zoom in and put the speakers on.Remember, those odd stories Mater used to tell us. The Peaslanders and the blubbits was one of her favourites, she would go on and on about it, and laugh at our faces when we didn’t understand where it was going…
She was lost in thoughts for a moment.
It started like this “There was trouble in New Peasland. A plague of hungry blubbits had wiped out the pea crops.” Mater used to say it was from an old book of tales, and that the author had surpassed herself. She chuckled I guess for a long time, she was the only one to believe that. Now look at us…”Eb cut the sound before the inevitable complain about missing Earth blahblah. But Peasland? That was new… He wasn’t one to dismiss an out-of-the-blue clue, and did a quick research on the network to learn more about the tale. It took a while for the Central Intelligence to run the search. It had to go deeper than usual.
After half an hour of waiting, he’d almost run out of scotch. Thankfully, the CI had found it. Pressed by time, and impatient by nature, Eb asked the CI to do a quick summary of the plot.
The central intelligence almost bugged at the request, and could only apologize for not being able to degibberize it.It took him a few hours to read the book on the holographic screen, and at the end, couldn’t say if it was just a waste of time. Preposterous story, with no head nor tail, literally… But then his genius elegant solution appeared as an evidence.
He’d known people were more likely to comply and control if they are told a plausible lie, within the frame of their accepted reality. He just had to bridge the discontinuity of their reality, with the reality of everyone else on the planet. The tale had reminded him of this popular movie about blue aliens. Blueus ex machina, that was it!
He spoke at the console “Record this and run simulation parameters:”
The blue men are from another planet —or rather the Mars settlers are led to believe they are from another planet.
They bundle them all into a fake spaceship
and take them on a fake spaceship ride
and deliver them back to Earth. where they have been all along of course
da dah!The answer came back after another painful hour of scotch-less waiting.
“Probability of success: 68%”
Well, that was the best Eb had in days. He was about to go with it when the CI chimed in“We took the liberty of running a modified simulation based on your setting, which we believe can yield a ratio of 97% of success.”
Eb was surprised at the initiative by the machine, and was curious to hear about it.
“We adjusted two points:
1. We can simulate some event on Mars like earthquakes to increase the likelihood of a willing departure from the planet.
2. The blue aliens may be a future inconvenience if they are fake actors, when the Mars colony comes out of simulation and back to Earth. We would rather suggest using religious beliefs and invisible hand of God or non-corporal aliens.”Eb was annoyed by the machine’s dismissal of his blue aliens. Kill his darlings?
“CI, any other suggestion for point 2?” he asked.
“Indeed. We can create artificial intelligence blue bodies based on my algorithm, which would make convincing aliens that can later interact with your governments and continue the disinformation.”
Eb was too drunk to realize he was about to make a devil’s pact when he agreed to launch the secret order for cybernetic blue bodies.
In reply to: The Precious Life and Rambles of Liz Tattler
In reply to: The Chronicles of the Flying Fish Inn
Aunt Idle:
It was going to be a long hot summer. Summer this year started early, and we were barely half way through July. I hadn’t had a moment to think, which isn’t true at all ~ my brain had been non stop chuntering since the end of April, but all the thinking was about errands and other peoples problems and trips to the bloody airport or the detention centre to pick up more waifs and strays. What I mean is, I hadn’t had any time to STOP thinking and just listen, or just BE. Or to put it more accurately, I hadn’t made much time for me. It had been an endless juggle, wanting to be helpful with all the refugees ~ of course I didn’t mind helping! ~ it wasn’t that I minded helping, it was the energy and the constant stream of complications, things going wrong, the complaining and defensive energy. It was a job to buffer it all and stay on an even keel, to ensure everyone had what they needed, but without acquiescing to the never ending needy attention seeking. It was hard to say no, even if saying no helped people become more confident and capable ~ it was always a mental battle not to feel unhelpful. Saying no to ones own comfort is always so much easier.
What I found I missed the most was doing things my own way, in my own time. How I wish I had appreciated being able to do that before all the refugees arrived! I’d wanted more people to do things with, living in this remote outpost ~ thought how nice it would be to have more friends here to do things with. Fun things though, not all the trips to the supermarket, the bank, the pharmacy, all the tedious errands. And in summer too! I like to minimize the errands in summer so I’m not worn out with the heat to do the fun things like go for early morning walks. But this lot didn’t want to get out of bed in the morning, and they weren’t really up to much walking either. I’ve been hobbled, having to walk slower, and not walk far. It had interfered somehow with my photography too, I haven’t been much in the zone these days, that place of observant appreciation. Ah well, it was interesting. Things are always interesting.
Not many countries had been willing to accept the hundreds of thousands of refugees from USA, and small wonder, but our idiotic government had been bribed to take more than a fair quota. All of the deserted empty buildings in town had been assigned to the newcomers, and all of our empty rooms at the hotel too.
Mater hardly ever came out of her room, and when she did venture out, it was only to poke them with her walking stick and wind them up with rude remarks. Prune seemed to be enjoying it though, playing practical jokes on them and deliberately misinforming them of local customs. Corrie and Clove were working on an anthropology paper about it all ~ that was a good thing and quite helpful at times. When the complaining and needs got overwhelming, I’d send them off to interview the people about it, which took the brunt off me, at least temporarily. Bert was a good old stick, just doing what needed to be done without letting it all get to him, but he didn’t want to talk about it or hear me complaining about it all.
“Aint much point in complaining about all the complaining” was all he’d say, and he had a point.
In reply to: The Precious Life and Rambles of Liz Tattler
“There are times when only complete nonsense will do, Percy,” stated Elizabeth with an air of triumph as she leaped out of her chair and started pacing the room. “Praise plastered particles pinched primly, pointedly, pairing plump parrots in pink painted plantpots!”
Striking a pose by the fireplace and pausing dramatically, she continued, “ Hail heavy heart handling harpsichord harpies home; hell bent high water, high hopes, heaving half hanging helplessly, hunkered and hungry.”
She sunk to the floor, overwhelmed with emotion.
“Sing softly,” she whispered, rising. “Sail slight, slanting sun shadows, sand sifting surrender, oh softly, so softly,”
Elizabeth swept over to Percy with outstretched arms, imploring, “Swill silkily slithering serpentine whispers waft willowy, willingly, winsomely waywardly west.”
“Quite,” replied Percy succinctly.
In reply to: The Chronicles of the Flying Fish Inn
Aunt Idle:
It was good to see the back of them, although it was a shame that Crispin Cornwall ~ alias Godfrey Trueman, I now knew ~ hadn’t paid his bill. I could trace him via Liz, but I wanted to keep a distance. I had two pieces of the Tattler, Trout and Trueman puzzle, but who was Trout? Why did they send me that note made of ripped up maps, and what did Flora have to do with it all? And what were they doing buying up ghost towns?
Of course, considering Liz was involved, it was entirely possible that none of it meant anything at all. Then again, with Liz, one never knew. And I don’t know a thing about Trueman, and less about Trout.
Perhaps there was a clue in room 8.
In reply to: The Precious Life and Rambles of Liz Tattler
“Who else is coming? Don’t remind me, I can’t bear it,” Elizabeth said fretfully while Norbert opened and closed his mouth like a goldfish.
“I have an idea!” she announced suddenly, standing up and crushing a mince pie that had rolled under her desk. “Gather round, come on, come on!”
Arona Haki shuffled in with the dustpan and mop, as Finnley blew her nose loudly and wiped the tears from her eyes. Norbert stood silently, waiting.
“It wouldn’t matter WHO came,” Liz paused for effect, “If none of us were here!”
“But we are here, aren’t we,” remarked Finnley. Norbert and Haki murmured in agreement.
“We are now!” replied Liz, “But we could be gone in an hour! We could go and visit my cousin ~ third cousin twice removed, actually ~ in Australia. They have an old inn and it’s sure to be half empty, it’s in the middle of nowhere, and,” she added triumphantly, “It will be lovely and warm there!”
“Blisteringly hot, more like,” muttered Finnley, “And would they like unexpected visitors for Chri, er Kri, er, that date on the calendar?”
“I’m sure they’d be delighted, “ replied Liz, crisply. “Not everyone is as curmudgeonly about Chri, er, Kri, er that date on the calendar as we are. And anyway,” she added, “If I write it into the story that they are delighted, then they will have no option but to be pleased to see us.”
“If you bloody lot are coming to the Flying Fish Inn, I’m buggering off to Mars for the holidays” said Bert.
Elizabeth spun round, saying sharply, “Bert! Get back to your own thread this instant! The bloody cheek of it, thread hopping like that, really!”
In reply to: The Precious Life and Rambles of Liz Tattler
Elizabeth slept late, not waking until the alchemy of the early morning had long since passed and the sun was high. It was a long luxurious moment between the remaining fragments of dreams and the harsh reality of the day before she remembered all the new additions. Where had they all come from? By what strange forces of attraction had they been drawn to her?
Enough of that nonsense, she told herself, as she climbed into her arthritis as if it were a pair of old slippers. She buttoned on a belly ache for good measure, and placed a headache on top of her tousled hair.
“Now then” she said, “Who the fuck are you lot and what are you all doing here? Has any of you thought to make coffee?”“
In reply to: The Precious Life and Rambles of Liz Tattler
’Okay, bye, gotta go,” said Finnley, already walking quickly away.
After a few steps she stopped, paused reflectively for a moment, sighed deeply and turned back to Godfrey.
”She misses you. She is back into reading her friggin’ ‘Lemon Juice for the Soul‘ rubbish again. She always was a nutcase of course, but yesterday she was walking around shouting ‘We are like Tolkiens of the nonsense and marvelous!’”
In reply to: The Hosts of Mars
Karthik was feeding some nonsense to the AI, while inspecting the logs of the central intelligence.
Finnley was listening with great interest to the teleporting stories of Togi Bear in Outlandis that he was spinning.
Dear Lord, he said after his maintenance routine was over, I wish they had an opening for creative writing, so that someone else can take this silly job. Blathering all this nonsense is exhausting.
Sadly, it was known to be the only thing that would keep the AI evolving and learning, and operating the mothership.
New information to sort and sieve through was the AI’s purpose. As much as humans were feeding off food, they fed off information.In reply to: The Chronicles of the Flying Fish Inn
Aunt Idle:
I noticed a change in Bert after the explosion. He seemed more reckless and carefree, more jovial, unlike his usual terse martyred demeanor. Curiosity got the better of me and I asked him about it, one day while we were in the garden picking tomatoes.
I had a sudden pang of guilt when he told me all about it because it rang a bell, a dim and distant bell, that I’d known about the bridge that he built but had forgotten all about it. Always so many other things to think about every day, and yet now, I wish I’d found the time to cross that bridge and explore the other side, or just sit there and think of nothing, and relax. But I didn’t, and now the bridge was gone.
After the explosion, people said it must have been an accident, some buried mining explosives set off by a wandering animal. I don’t know how many people knew about Bert’s bridge, but none seemed to recall it after the explosion. It was as if it had never existed.
It was a funny thing though, now that the bridge was gone, now I knew the story, I wanted to see what was on the other side. If I had to drive all the way up to the bridge in Ninetown to cross the river, then so be it.
In reply to: The Precious Life and Rambles of Liz Tattler
“What ARE you reading, Finnley?”
“Just a book I picked up in Paris,” she replied nonchalantly, hoping that would be enough information to appease Elizabeth’s curiosity. And also, as an added bonus, adding a certain je ne sais quoi to her vibe. Finley knew she could come across as a tad boring, something she was quite proud of. Still, it didn’t hurt to mix things up every now and then.
Elizabeth sighed loudly. “If you can’t think of anything sensible to say then I wish you would just talk nonsense. Or go to another thread” she added as an afterthought, wondering just whose thread this was anyway. Finley was tending to monopolise things lately. Even without saying much.
“At least I am reading a fucking book”, muttered Finnley under her breath.
That being a euphemism for writing a fucking comment of course.
In reply to: The Precious Life and Rambles of Liz Tattler
“Liz’, I’m sorry to interrupt,” remarked Godfrey, somewhat cautiously, “I know you’d rather forget about it, but shall I remind you that we are going to be irrevocably late for our appointment at the court, for the third time.”
“What nonsense is that again? And where did you appear from Godammfrey? I haven’t summoned you!”Godfrey couldn’t help but raise his eyes and start a rolling motion, but insisted.
“The lawsuit, darling. This scandalous libel by that rat of a critic who accused you quite unambiguously of both plagiarism and ghostwriting. You surely do remember that?”“I’m sorry Godfrey, can’t this be dealt with without my being there. I’m not paying you peanuts to just entertain me.”
Godfrey sighed. It was already the second time they missed the appointment, and the judge would certainly no see it in a good light. A little bit of publicity around this affair wasn’t bad of course, especially with such hilarious allegations. Everyone in town knew well enough Elizabeth’s take on both plagiarism (“it’s just slight teafing”) and ghostwriting (“channeling by another name, darling”), so it was very good publicity indeed.
But having sued the critic now, it would be a pity to lose to him. If only for the money. When did she become so careless about it? Having personnel did go a little to her head…“If you’d pardon me” Elizabeth said after a eloquent burp, “all that tea have quite distended my bladder, and I would actually quite enjoy discovering the loo of the courthouse. When shall we go?”
